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Sunny volleyball championships

The action was as hot as the weather this past weekend at Parksville Community Park as 88 teams competed in the Western Canadian Beach Volleyball Championships.

— image credit: Tyson Taylor photo

The sun came out to play alongside more than 88 teams for the Western Canadian Beach Volleyball Championships last weekend in Parksville.

Hundreds of players came looking to be named the top pairing at the tournament, which kicked off Saturday morning as the sun started to break through the clouds.

With games rolling all through the day, the competition was fierce and there wasn’t a grain of sand left untouched once teams finished playing.

The championships had 26 courts going non–stop, hosting the finest beach volleyball players from across Western Canada. There was a feature court set–up, complete with bleachers for prime seating, music blaring for the players and spectators to enjoy and all the matches on the main court were streaming live online.

Playing best two out of three leading up to the finals, teams did what they could to win their games and better their chances at having a higher position heading into Sunday, looking to crack the finals.

“There’s lots of competition here, it’s great,” summed up the team of Zec Johnson and Kaden Gamache. “Everyone is having a good time and the weather is great, so that makes for a good tournament.”

The tournament will be back next year, with Parksville playing host to the event in 2015, following a successful run this year.

“It’s a beautiful place to come and play, it doesn’t really get better than this,” surmised one of the out of town officials. “You’ve got the water right there, tons of courts for all the matches to go on at once and there’s lots of room for everyone to enjoy.”

Local volleyball player Mariah St. Pierre was in action, looking to improve on her recent B.C. Summer Games finish.

St. Pierre took part in the girls U-18 division and took home the bronze medal in the Tier 2 division.

Capturing the gold medal in the girls U-14 division were the team of May/Purdy, from Victoria, in Tier 1. Silver went to the Gamache/Boughen team out of Abbotsford, while the team of Hopkins/Beimers, from Surrey, took home bronze.

Tier 2 U-14 girls saw the Tichleman/Tognetti team, from Vancouver, take home gold, Hayley/Heffring, from Alberta, with silver and Foxcroft/Molengraaf, Alberta, with the bronze.

The boys U-16 Tier 1 winner was the Johnson/Gamache team out of Langley, silver went to the Newman/Elgert team from Alberta, and bronze to the team of Vanderlinde/Peister, also from Alberta.

The girls’ U-16 winning team in Tier 1 was Furlan/Hemens, from Alberta, silver to Van Ryk/Attieh, from Surrey.

Tier 2 gold went to the Wiebe/Braun team from Kelowna, silver to Botnikes/Krepp, from Langley, and bronze to Davies/Mitchell out of Nanaimo.

Tier 2 saw O’Reilly/Hsu, Langley, beat out Hsu/Lee, also from Langley. The team of Nickel/Leroy, from Alberta, captured bronze.

The U-18 girls saw Pexman/Hill, from Alberta, take gold in Tier 1, beating Dunn/Neil, from Surrey, while Bauder/O’Reilly, from Langley, took bronze.

Tier 2 winners were Clarker/Breukels, silver went to Worsley/Finan, while local St. Pierre/Franklin took home bronze.

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